


Repent, Harlequin!

by wheniwasdonedying



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Dissociation, Emetophobia, Hallucinations, Head Injury, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), M/M, Magic, Manipulation, Medical Procedures, Nonbinary Character, Original Character(s), Other, Sakaar (Marvel), Science Fiction, Telepathy, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), nothing big just unnamed side characters, okay fuck (throws my laptop into the ocean), title and themes inspired by harlan ellison lmfao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26605312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheniwasdonedying/pseuds/wheniwasdonedying
Summary: Lying there for a long while, Loki thought feverishly about a world kind enough to have clouds.
Relationships: En Dwi Gast | Grandmaster & Loki, En Dwi Gast | Grandmaster/Loki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Repent, Harlequin!

**Author's Note:**

> hi welcome to the first fic on my new account. feel free to tell me it sucks huge ass, or point out any mistakes, but if you like it maybe tell me that too? okay, well, enjoy!

The palpably thick air of the planet Loki had been carelessly cast down to by the indifferent hands of space irritated his eyes, hurt his throat when he took shuddering breaths. Atmospheric pressure beat down on him, overwhelming his senses with ozone and smoke and fire.

He wondered if he was concussed. How open was one's skull allowed to be? He thought of his mother, with his head full of fog - his mother, with her ground herbs, jars of oil, strips of soft white cotton cloth. His mother, soothing him in her airy yet sympathetic tone. 

He thought of her standing above him, could've sworn she ran a hand up and down his back, gentle but firm as he keeled over and vomited behind an abandoned aircraft. He stared down the neon-green bile, mouth unpleasantly acidic, clutching his stomach and not daring to look directly at the mirage of maternal care in the corner of his eye, should it cause the delusional source of comfort to dissipate.

Loki scratched sluggishly at his head, near but not within the gaping wound he sported from his crash-landing, pulling aside clumps of blood-matted black hair, attempting to close the gap in meat and bone. The endeavour was fruitless, unable to form a coherent thought much less perform complex magic. A surge of pain-based adrenaline granted him the manic strength needed to urge himself to his feet, legs shaking, forearms bracing on metal siding that seared his flesh through torn clothing as he tried to will his head to stop spinning, stomach to stop lurching, sun to stop beating down on him - considering how much of his insides were currently on the outside, he thought it a fair request of the fates.

Hot tears formed in his eyes and spilled down his grime-caked face, creating wet trails in the ash and dirt and half-dry blood as he dry-heaved again, reduced to a crouch with bare palms flat on the blister-hot metal wall, head down, opposite the aggressive UV that melted his black clothing into the skin of his back.

Nothing came up, of course, stomach already empty and mouth too dry to even spit. Dazedly, he wondered what the chances of a sun-shower were, as he collapsed weakly to his knees and shuddered because it was all he could do. 

Lying there for a long while, Loki thought feverishly about a world kind enough to have clouds. 

He tried his second attempt at standing, only once the sun had set low in the sky, which he could now finally stand to look at directly with the brights turned down. Whirling portals of all colours and sizes dotted the red-orange skyline, clustered together and becoming denser the farther away they got from the city in the distance. 

It was a collection of grandiose and glittering structures, towered haphazardly, made of metal and rock and glass, billowing with fabric and all of it covered in paint, so much brightly pigmented paint, that when the sun glared off it in an offensive way, it beamed like a prism directly into Loki's eyes, a burst of colour illuminating his sight in a way that was disarming and made his head spin even more, an impressive feat when one's brain matter was already exposed.

So, with little else to do, he started onwards, towards the shining mass of civilization.

Onwards he drudged through the heat-haze and the smell, the weeds and the rot, legs on autopilot, and eyes only straying from the decreasingly-distant image of salvation when he thought he might be able to identify a face among the bodies - bodies that he otherwise pretended were lacking in identity, the way one did not consider individual water molecules when they looked out at the sea. He thoughtfully considered this perspective, and if he noticed his peripheral vision blurring, he did not acknowledge it consciously.

Once he reached the point where he was distinctly within and not without the security blanket of city walls, Loki's guard dropped immensely, despite not necessarily having gained any more information about his surroundings - habitable space was that and nothing more, and whatever dangers were posed to him by strange new people were preferable to ones previously posed to him by strange new hyper-suns - specifically, unreasonably large blue stars that should be long dead, but were lucky enough to feed endlessly on a galaxy that never ran out of fresh fuel. 

Loki thought about burning endlessly like that, never being allowed to stop and too large to smother. The idea scared him, though he couldn't quite place why that was.

The city was unimaginably dense, over-populated alleys bulging with structures that grew and shrank and moved organically, winding pathways and tunnels and staircases leading to everywhere and nowhere at all, streets abandoned, doors and windows locked against nightfall.

Every once in a while, an open window caught loki's attention, light and sound and activity spilling out of its encasement and alerting his groggy senses, but his hunger and pain had become background noise, a static buzz that he was no longer aware of, and so he kept on his path to nothing, muttering half-consciously, the uneven, unpredictable streets encouraging him to move forward towards no clear goal, as if they truly were alive and speaking to him only.

Close-knit buildings cradled him as he lightly dragged his hands along narrow alley walls to guide his way. Water occasionally dripped down from sources high above him, buildings connected by bridges and pipes and wiring and clothesline, so dense it blocked out the stars. The gutter-water was beautiful respite to his wounds and thirst, and each time it met his skin it sent a shiver down his spine that jolted him to a fuller awareness of his surroundings, but it didn't have a lasting effect - he had been moving readily towards an unclear destination that was nothing more than delirious intuition without any sense as far as he was concerned, and once this realization fully sunk into his perforated skull, he must have collapsed uncaringly in a doorway, for that is how he woke.

-

Loki was risen, though how much later he could not say, by a broom delivering incessant smacks to his ribs, and he looked around at the unfamiliar alley and the sun streaming through the gaps in the obscured skyline, then at the set jaw and worried eyes of the woman who looked back intensely. 

He straightened up to the best of his ability, of which there was little, and attempted to apologize before realizing that any sound he made would be remiss to leave his chest, and so he gave a look that he hoped conveyed the required amount of remorse, hands up, palms forward in front of him to demonstrate a lack of hostility - he had no knives, not anymore, pockets and sleeve holsters emptied from the meteor-like descent made only a day previous. As he remembered that shock, he was even more shocked to realize that he was, in fact, still alive.

With this, he began to stumble away, weakly and towards nothing in particular once again - but he was immediately stopped from this haphazard half-stepping by a firm hand on his shoulder, attached to a gaze that was now only fearful in the sympathetic sense, as well as an offer of food - and he relented to being led beyond the doorstep and into the small apartment it concealed.

The woman did not introduce herself, and did not ask Loki's name either, which he was thankful for, as he could not answer - it made him wonder that maybe, likely, even, that this was not the first time she had assisted somebody in his position. Her home was small and crowded, but comfortably warm and cool, and not too much of either at once. The smell of cooking food assaulted his senses, and he physically lurched at the pain it sent through his abdomen - he sat down, and minutes later, but still not soon enough, they ate from ceramic dishes with wooden sticks. As he lay at the altar of breakfast, grateful enough to cry for the love of rice and eggs, Loki felt himself come back into existence. He drank his tea and cleared his throat.

"Thank you," he said as he met the woman's gaze again, voice like sandpaper and much smaller than the one he had become so used to possessing in recent years. He sounded, he realized, like a child that had been crying. He waited for the gut reaction that such a realization generally brought him, but his stomach had been sated, and was left with no remaining thoughts on the matter.

When the woman offered to nurse Loki's wounds for him, he accepted. She fussed over his split head with concern and only a little disgust, told him not to worry because she used to be a nurse, and got to work disinfecting then closing the wound. 

When all was said and done, he was left with a three-inch gash on the left side of his scalp, slightly above his ear. The hair around it was cropped short, stitches visible but barely so, and the spots that had been torn out by the root were hidden by slightly altering his part. Loki took the scissors from the table, hacked the opposite side just as short, leaving himself with a fistful of black strands and an asymmetrical mullet. From behind him in the mirror, Loki saw the woman give a smile and nod of approval.

He asked her why she wasn't a nurse anymore, she asked him why he cared. It was tempting to do no more than parrot her own question back at her, might have even been justifiable - but looking not at her face and instead at the hand still clutched around his sheared locks, he just shrugged.

After being outfitted in fresh clothes of light plain linen, Loki was given a canteen of water and a knife. He asked for a map, and the woman just laughed. Asking for her name, he said he could pay her back soon, but she just shook her head. He tried to insist, and she crossed her arms before speaking.

"Nope, not happening. You should head out before noon, by the way. Real hot by noon."

"But - I have the means," he began, unsure of the validity of this statement, but daring to hope.

She shook her head. "Kid, the only thing you have is severe head trauma and a dwindling amount of time before it's too hot to be outside without wishing I had let you bleed out on my step."

Loki drew his eyebrows together in frustration, but turned and looked out at the narrow street that wound into the distance all the same. She was right.

"Thank you," Loki said again.

"No sweat," the woman said softly, smiling again and closing her door behind her, lock clicking.

Loki wondered if the pun was intentional. He had a feeling it was.

And so he set out, sun beaming through gaps in the skyline, which mostly shaded him from the harsh rays of light. It was very humid, in contrast to the dry heat of the desert, something that could likely be attributed to the city's design, or lack thereof. The dampness was trapped within lower levels as a result of the crowded buildings and other obstructions. It was situated in a way that suggested a single-minded focus on expansion, seeming to have happened biologically, unsupervised and unregulated, sprawling and confused - homes were like shoe boxes balanced precariously on top of one another, storefronts mixed in with the homes now and then.

After maybe an hour or so of navigating the narrow streets (but it was hard to tell, the effect was hypnotizing,) Loki was spat out an open-aired space, having found a marketplace - it was beyond crowded, all colours and noise and people packed like sardines, shopping so casually that it was obvious that this was the usual state of things. 

He wasn't really interested in shopping, and wasn't very hungry yet, but he bought some fruit anyways, mostly as an excuse to ask the people at the stalls about where he was - apparently, the capital (and only) city of a planet called Sakaar, ruled by somebody they all simply called The Grandmaster, who quite obviously left it largely ungoverned, and was allegedly far more interested in his own personal pursuits than any kind of rulership - Loki heard of partying, of gambling, and of holding gladiator-like affairs in his own personal home-slash-stadium. With this, he was officially far more interested in exploring this planet than previously, now that he could deem it reasonably hospitable under the right circumstances.

To Loki, it only made the most logical sense to attempt to come into contact with this enigmatic ruler, as he still, in some twisted manner, considered himself royalty despite the questionable continued existence of his kingdom and kinship - and as grateful as he was for the help of the city's residents, as much as he'd like to attempt to find Thor before anything else - he was sweaty, his legs hurt, his head was aching, and being homeless was getting old fast.

He was pointed towards the Grandmaster's home, the largest building in the city, and made his way in that general direction. The sun gradually lowered itself in the sky as he walked, and by nightfall he was very close, but once again very tired - not keen on fainting in the streets two nights in a row, he ducked into a small bar lit by flickering neon signs, sat down, and ordered a drink.

He conversed with the fellow patrons as best he could, laughing and flirting and gesturing with his hands as he talked, embellishing stories of his adventures - edited, of course, revised so that he was always the victor, the hero, a shining beacon of bravery and skill and wit, and he could tell that they all believed it, drank it down unassumingly, and it dawned on him that this was a place in which he did not have a reputation, was not recognized, was not important - and while he waited to be crushed by a sense of inadequacy at this realization of how unimportant he was, all he felt was free.

Fueled by alcohol and laughter and the warm reassurance of anonymity, he set out once more, stumbling slightly more than he had been before he entered the establishment, and after even more walking, he was in the general vicinity of the base of the tower - he ducked into a side street, mustering up as much of his magic as he could, and used it to outfit himself in something far nicer than what he was currently wearing, as well as fixing his hair and washing his face, and while normally this would not have taken such strenuous effort, he was exhausted, and likely not in his right mind, and a little bit sloshed from his recent excursion, if he was being honest.  
He walked as confidently as he possibly could to the entrance of the tower, addressing the pair of guards at the door. He didn't see the good in trying to sneak in and risk getting thrown out onto his ass into the street - the urge to do things as honestly as possible was one he rarely indulged, and most of the time didn't even feel it to begin with - but, in an attempt to be self-aware, he begrudgingly acknowledged his desperation, and followed what he assumed were the rules.

He introduced himself with as many impressive buzzwords as possible, spun a vague yarn about being needed inside for business purposes, and was glad it worked, because he was barely aware of what was coming out of his mouth as it was being said, and would not have been able to elaborate on any of it even if he had wanted to.

And so he was let inside, and informed by a woman who seemed to appear out of thin air that the Grandmaster was currently hosting a party of some kind, and that he was welcome to join, as there generally were not formal invitations to begin with. The strange woman - taller than him, with an elaborate and revealing outfit that left him feeling underdressed, led him down several hallways, all vibrantly painted and ornately decorated, with tall ceilings and towering windows, until they were right outside a set of impressive doors that contained not only thrumming music, but also the same palpable energy he had felt leading him otherwise blindly through the streets his first night here - it spoke to him in an ironically sobering manner, informing him that he was exactly where he needed to be, and so he followed the woman inside, barely registering the enormous doors once again closing behind him as he was instantly wrapped up in so much external stimuli that it made him dizzy - loud music and bright lights, and so, so many people! He chatted his way through the room, accepted every drink he was offered, and before he knew it he was beyond intoxicated, lounging lazily across a large couch, face flushed and eyes unfocused, barely holding a conversation with a group of guests draped over opposite seating.

And then he saw him - and everything else disappeared - literally.

Well, everything around him disappeared - the people, the party, the music, the lights, and, as he could tell, his entire blood alcohol content as well. He could see the man standing about twenty feet away from him, slightly elevated. And now they were having a staring contest.

His psychic ability radiated off of his bright, finely robed form, silk fabric dripping with precious stones, light dancing in projections off of the room’s surface. His elaborate gown was all warm tones, a contrast to the room, all cold metal surfaces in tints of steel blue and silver, geometric grooves glowing with inset lights of sharp neon green.

The display was a little off-putting, and Loki wondered why they didn’t just pick one color.

The man stood on a platform of stairs, tall and imposing. Loki shook slightly, refusing to blink first, and failing almost immediately after consciously realizing this intent. Loki wasn’t scared, only assumed this man was the aforementioned Grandmaster, and wasn’t exactly impressed with the intimidation tactic.

But it was kind of chilly in here, wasn’t it? Goosebumps raised on his arms, and he realized he was no longer under the influence of nearly any magic of his own, back in the light clothes the kind woman had given him the day before, and looking kind of grimy.

Nearly the second Loki lost himself in disinterest (or rather, self-interest, he supposed,) the Grandmaster spoke, voice deep and erratic.

“Who are you, little harlequin?”

“It’s very cold in here,” Loki offered after a long pause, with his mouth set but with eyes that he imagined were slightly frantic. He coughed into his elbow, feeling unimposing, and slightly more imposed on by the second. “Why bother to ask? You don’t have to, I can feel it.” 

The Grandmaster raised his eyebrows, the edges of his mouth turning up in delight. “Ah, but where would be the fun in that?”

This was stupid, Loki thought. “I’m Loki. And this is stupid.”

“Yes, it is,” the Grandmaster replied, catty grin widening. Loki rolled his eyes.

The Grandmaster clasped his hands together. “You’re Loki,” he said in a gentle tone, almost to himself. Loki rolled his eyes again, then shivered, and squatted, wrapping his arms around his legs and rubbing his hands on them to create friction.

“It’s really very cold in here,” he tried again. “And I think it’s getting colder.”

The Grandmaster laughed. “What is it with you and the AC in here? It’s a hot one today, have you been out there?”

“Yes,” Loki huffed in frustration. “I was out walking most of today, and yesterday, and I’m quite tired, and would like to find somewhere to sleep soon, since you’re so interested.” The Grandmaster laughed again.

Loki was becoming quite heated now, metaphorically speaking. He stood up, fists clenching and arms stiff at his sides. “Listen to me carefully. I am LOST, I am TIRED, and I’m not here to PLAY GAMES. I crash-landed headfirst into this heaping pile of a planet not two days ago and am just sitting here talking about NOTHING while Thor is either DEAD, or hunting his WENCH of a SISTER who is RUNNING AROUND TRYING TO DESTROY MY KINGDOM and everyone in it. Do you understand?”

“We were talking about the weather,” the Grandmaster countered calmly, “and you’re standing, now, actually.”

Loki was seeing red. The room suddenly felt quite bearable. His stomach flipped.

It flipped again as he looked distantly at his own hands, eyes wide. He flexed his fingers, skin like mashed blue and blackberries, red veins and white scars standing out like they were put under a blacklight.

Well, this was going just fucking great.

“Please, “ Loki said, surprisingly calm and not entirely of his own accord. He met the Grandmaster’s eyes again, disturbed by his unwarranted confidence. “Could I have a drink?”

It materialized in his hand, a long crystalline vial of apple-green fluid that fizzed sweetly.

“Thank you,” he muttered weakly, before throwing it back in one go.

“You’re welcome,” the Grandmaster said, kindly and in a way that was almost apologetic. “You uh, look good, by the way. Don’t know why you didn’t start out with this - I thought you were hiding something dangerous. But this, this is great.”

Loki tried to look disinterested as he picked at his sleeve. He was a confusing mix of angry and flattered. The Grandmaster began descending the smooth metal staircase, soft shoes muffled by layers of trailing skirts. He stopped at about an arms length from Loki, reaching out to place a hand tentatively on his shoulder. “You’ll stay here?” he said, in a way that was only a question out of courtesy. 

“Um,” Loki started, stopped, and began again. “Sure.” He felt far drunker than he should from one drink, as if he had been returned to the state he was in previously, before the room appeared around him and replaced the party.

The Grandmaster grinned warmly, both hands on Loki’s shoulders now, the glass vial gone as simply and suddenly as it had appeared. 

He hoisted Loki, who was now his preferred color palette once again, into his arms, the other man far too worn out to say anything about it. He dozed in and out of sleep until he felt himself being placed gently on an impressively soft bed. He sat up, head slightly spinning, and saw that the Grandmaster was sitting at the foot of the bed, legs crossed and leaning back on his arms, watching Loki.

Loki laid back down, this time on his side with his head propped up on his arm, and stared back at the Grandmaster - they sat this way for an indeterminable amount of time, in another unspoken staring contest, but Loki's eyes were just as tired as the rest of him, and eventually he caved. 

The Grandmaster laughed triumphantly at this, and that made Loki laugh too, and eventually the two of them were splayed out next to each other, both on their backs, and the Grandmaster was drawing circles on Loki's hand with a polished finger.

Loki wasn't sure who started talking first, or what the conversation had even initially been about, but he found himself ranting - about his family, and Earth, and New York, and being used - having the magic of the Tesseract worm its way into his brain, and warp his desires - he was crying now - tears ran down his flushed cheeks as he explained that he did not want to hurt his brother, didn't even want to rule at that point in time. “But I guess you knew all that, or whatever,” he finished, anticlimactically.

The Grandmaster smiled sympathetically. “Not really how that works, and besides, I, uh, cut the connection, I guess you could say. After that whole stunt I pulled. Which I wouldn’t have done the same way I did it, by the way, if I had known about the cubey thing.”

Loki stayed quiet for a few seconds, squinting at him. “Nope. You knew what you were doing. But it’s fine. I admire your tactical sensibilities, and accept your non-apology.”

“Damn, you, uh, might be better at reading minds than I am. Was I close, though?”

“Not for a second,” Loki yawned. “Goodnight. You can leave now.”

The Grandmaster, surprising himself, started to listen by getting up off the bed - and then was completely predictable, by just standing there.

He watched as this Loki burrowed himself underneath the blankets of his bed, and drifted off to sleep. The early morning sun was illuminating the whole room now, light orange and gentle, and it caressed Loki's pale face - tear stained, pink cheeks, dark bags under his eyes - and the Grandmaster wondered about his new citizen. 

This one - he was different. The Grandmaster had been doing this ruling thing long enough to be able to tell when somebody wanted to get close to him for the power, for the privilege that it provided - and while this Loki person was certainly searching for something, it likely wasn't that simple or shallow of a desire - from what he had been able to make out from Loki's venting, he had been royalty, had ruled - and was wholly unsatisfied with the trouble that it brought. 

No, Loki was different - he was hungry, there was no doubt about that, but not for power. For stability, and for attention. In fact, he was near-starved for it. And he really was very fun, and cute, and he had no previous impressions of the Grandmaster - something that was surprisingly comforting.  
While he generally revelled in being feared and respected, there was something enticing about being seen through - something so strange and delicate and unfamiliar that he decided he wanted to see where the feeling took him. But, if there was anything virtuous to be said about him, it was his refusal to back down from a challenge - the Grandmaster was a natural problem solver, and boy, this Loki guy certainly had some problems. 

And so, he left Loki alone to rest - but not before placing a light kiss to the top of their head, and closing every one of the wall-to-wall curtains with a casual sweep of his hand as he walked away.

-

Loki opened his eyes, as slowly as he possibly could, and was relieved to discover that the room he was currently residing in was reasonably dark - he vaguely remembered one of the walls being adorned with floor-to-ceiling windows, which, as he realized as he sat up and stretched, had fortunately been outfitted with curtains. The room was dark enough to not exacerbate his migraine, but with enough light making its way in to gather a vague sense of his surroundings - he was on a massive plush bed, the elegant wood headboard of which was resting against a wall that faced the thoughtful window dressings. 

To his right was an enormous set of double doors, also made of wood. Strange, about the wood - everything else he could recall of the palace had been made of some kind of metal. But his room felt - homey.

Being the most well-rested he had been since leaving Asgard several days before, he tried to think through his current situation, and came to almost no conclusions. It was a weird situation, to say the least, and even weirder the more Loki thought about how similarly he and his siblings had been dealt with by Odin. He shook his head lightly, in an attempt to dispel thoughts of his family. He'd now lost both of his parents, and as for Thor - Loki had no idea where his brother was, or even if he hadn't already been slain by Hela. 

These were issues that made his head feel that much closer to exploding, and so he focused his mental energy on lowering himself off the side of the lavish bed and made his way towards the impressive doors. 

The room was large, and sparsely furnished - a trunk, also wood, at the end of his bed, two small tables on each side of the bed, and a large bookshelf adjacent to the set of doors, with an enormous woven rug between the two. It was creepy, how much the decor almost made him forget which planet he was on, but not wholly unwelcome.

The hallway outside of his room was empty, unguarded - at least he had not asserted himself as a threat, something that brought mixed emotions, but was decidedly a good thing. 

The sun streamed freely through skylights, and it warmed him as he wandered aimlessly. Eventually, he made his way to a far busier wing of the building, although he was hardly phased by the activity - from what he had gathered and retained, the Grandmaster's home functioned as a sort of all-purpose government building, castle, stadium, and nightclub, and while some areas seemed to be more private than others, it was obvious that there were no qualms with visitors. 

He went back to his room, and into the bathroom within it. Then, inspected his wound, which was no longer a wound, but a pale scar that blent almost seamlessly into his hair. There was a lipstick print on his forehead that he washed off. He wondered if the two had any connection.

He found a kitchen, and with it, breakfast. He asked the person who made it where and when he might run into the Grandmaster next. They shrugged. “Tonight, the stadium for sure, but until then, I can’t help you. When he’s planning a game you usually can’t find him at all, the day before. But if you’re staying here, you’ll definitely see him tonight. He gets real excited about showing new guests his fights.”

“Fights?”

“Yeah. Oh man, you have no idea, huh? Well, get dressed up. He’ll be kinda mad if you don’t, and that means you might die, so.”

“Right. Well, thanks for the warning.”

Back to his room again, and into the trunk. It had clothes, which he rifled through, putting together an outfit. The bathroom had makeup, but before doing any of that, he exposed his natural skin. 

Most of Loki’s choices at this point were of the “well, fuck it,” variety.

After getting ready, he read in his room until the sun set, and then ventured back out into the hallway, walking aimlessly until he found somebody to ask about the fight.

“Fight?” He said simply.

The woman smiled emphatically, and explained to him how to make his way to the visitor’s box.

-

_"Live in the world around you."_

_"I hate it. It's a terrible world."_

\- "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, Harlan Ellison, 1965 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for making it to the end! *gives you a bag of party favors for your participation in my irrelivant antics* *blows you a kiss and diappears into the night*


End file.
